Rolling Out The Red Carpet
by DrAmishMD
Summary: Strange companions meet under questionable circumstances. Stupid banter ensues. Written for /r/RWBY's April MonCon.


Four figures stood at the top of a cliff. At first glance, an observer would wonder why these four were standing together, as they seemed to fit together as well as a square peg in a round hole if appearances were anything to go by. Subsequent glances would still cause confusion for said observer: these figures _really_ didn't fit together, and yet there they were. As pairs they made sense, with the two on the left wearing similar armor and the two on the right wearing civilian clothes.

"Armored" described the first pair extremely well. From head to foot, they were encased in a futuristic full-body plating, one an orange color and one a dark red, that protected every inch of them from every angle. Their faces were obscured by tinted visors that made it impossible to read any kind of facial expression whatsoever. Both figures also held in their hands some sort of rifle, though they were held at ease and not trained on anything.

The second pair had a slightly more diversified clothing arrangement. The younger of the two wore a black corseted dress with red highlights, which matched the color theme of her (short) hair, combat boots, and weapon folded on her lower back. Her posture and face exuded a bubbly cheerfulness that was almost infectious. Compared to the two armored figures, and even her partner, the red girl was very short.

Unlike the armored pair, whose only difference was coloration, red's counterpart looked different in a number of ways. First, her hair was very blonde, very full, and very long, spilling down over her shoulders and resting comfortably midway down her back. Second, while Red's attire was relatively conservative, her partner's was definitely not. Extremely small shorts and a jacket/undershirt combination resulted in a lot of skin displayed along her legs, midriff, arms, and chest. It looked good, however: combined with her knee-high boots, white pleated skirt, and orange scarf, she had the appearance of a very agile and very fashionable fighter.

The four stood in silence, looking out over the forest that stretched below them. The silence lasted for about a minute before the orange-colored soldier turned to face the short red girl standing next to him.

"So let me try to get my head wrapped around this for… oh, I dunno, the seventh time."

The girl nodded. "Alright, fire away."

"You're telling me that you're fifteen."

"Yup."

"… and that you're a highly-trained soldier that leads a squad of badasses on frequent life-or-death missions."

"Yup."

"Okay, ignoring your _disgusting_ lack of laziness and apathy -and that's pretty hard to ignore. Seriously, you're fifteen, you should be frolicking through fields or something, not training to be the next Rambo- what kind of fucked up child labor laws are in place on this planet? I repeat, you're fifteen. One-five. Not even twenty yet! I mean no disrespect, probably, but what dumbass is trusting you with command at age fifteen?"

"A dumbass that's smarter than the one that made you Captain." The red soldier piped up. Turning to face the red girl, he added, "Also, laziness is a lack of motivation to do something, which means that having a lack of laziness already puts you leagues above Grif in the 'getting shit done' department. So congratulations on that."

The orange one, Grif, faced his companion. "Simmons… just do me a favor and shut the fuck up. I'm trying to gather information here, and I don't think Sarge would appreciate you obstructing my efforts."

Simmons snorted. "Uh huh. Information."

Grif ignored him and turned back to the girl. "As I was saying, what kind of dictator do you have around here that gang-pressed you into leading some elite commando unit?"

The girl gave Grif a very confused look. "Uh… no dictator? I'm doing this because I want to."

Grif stared at her for a solid ten seconds before forming a response. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I'm doing this of my own free will. No dictator necessary!" The girl cheerfully stated. "I've always dreamed of being a huntress, fighting against monsters and being an inspirational hero to the people of Vale."

Another ten seconds passed as Grif tried (and failed) to digest the girl's explanation. "Ooooookay. So it looks like we'll have to go with an eighth attempt at explaining this to me, but let's shelve that for now and move on. Your weapon of choice as a 'huntress' is that thing on your back, right?" Grif gestured at the compact mechanism resting neatly on the girl's small frame.

At the mention of her weapon, the girl happily pulled the device off her back. In one smooth motion, she unfolded it into its full scythe form and slammed it down, embedding its tip into the ground next to her with a loud _crunch_. "Yup! I built Crescent Rose myself, and I wouldn't dream of using anything else to fight the Grimm."

Grif, who had momentarily cowered as the giant scythe swung out and buried itself into the earth, recovered enough to examine the weapon and respond. "Aaaaaand in addition to inflicting death-by-doomblade, you're telling me that it can also shoot me in the face."

The girl nodded, pulled back the bolt on the side of Crescent Rose, and fired off a shot to emphasize Grif's statement. "Yup! It's a customizable high-impact sniper rifle!"

Grif sighed. "It's also a gun. Of course it's also a gun." For the first time, Grif shifted his attention to the girl's companion, who had been occupying herself with a small tablet-like device while the other three were talking. "And you. You've probably got some obscenely terrifying murderweapon of mass destruction, don't you?"

The blonde girl looked up and gave a nonchalant shrug. "Yeah, I've got a pair of gauntlets that fire shotgun rounds. Adds a nice bang to my punch."

"Which means you've got shotguns for fists." Grif turned back to face his partner.

"Simmons, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That we should never, ever tell Sarge the existence of shotgun fists? Yeah, for once, I am completely, 100% in agreement with you. Like, abso-fucking-lutely on board with that idea."

"Good." Grif returned his attention to the other girl. "So you've got shotgun fists, your friend-"

"Sister."

"… sister -damn, she looks nothing like you- has a sniper scythe, and I'm guessing just about everyone else that calls themselves a 'hunter' or 'huntress' has some crazy-ass weapon that can alternate between smashing my face in and putting holes in it from a distance?"

The girl pondered Grif's question for a moment before nodding. "Never thought of it that way, but that sounds about right, yeah."

This elicited a long, 20-second stare from the orange soldier before he once again turned to Simmons. "Fuck it, I'm out of here."

"Wait, seriously?" Simmons asked, surprised at his teammate's sudden change of heart. "What happened to 'gathering information' for Sarge?"

Grif shrugged. "Yeah, about that. Let's pretend for a moment that all these _actually competent_ _and terrifyingly armed_ fighters don't exist. Without them running around trying to impale-and-then-shoot us, we'd still have to worry about a literally endless swarm of…" He turned back to the huntresses. "What'd you call them?"

"Grimm." The blonde answered, her attention returning to her tablet.

"Right. Grimm. They've got wolves, bears, big-ass crows, _fucking two-headed giant snakes_. And you know what they do, Simmons? Do you know what their sole purpose in life is?"

"Yeah, they attack the people living here. I've been standing right fucking next to you while these two -Ruby and Yang, right?- explained everything."

"Then what part of 'getting the fuck out of here' do you not understand? The local wildlife can kill us. These hunters -who sound as terrifying as the freelancers, by the way- can _definitely_ kill us. And if that's not enough, this place has a pro-furry terrorist organization that can kill us!"

"Grif, I believe the politically correct term is 'pro-faunus.' It's a pro-faunus terrorist organization."

"I don't give a shit! They can kill us! Along with everything else here!" After a brief pause to catch his breath and collect his thoughts, Grif continued. "You know, I never thought I'd be saying this, but I'd _actually_ rather be back in Blood Gulch. At least there all we had to worry about was the stupid Blue Team that literally spent all their time dicking around in their own base. You know, _not killing us_."

"… except for the freelancer they hired to kill us after we stole their flag?"

Grif looked down in contemplation. "Shit, you're right. Still, it's better than here. Like, waaaaaaay better than here."

The red girl, Ruby, waved her hands to grab the attention of the two bickering soldiers. "Hey! Hey you guys! Calm down, you've got it all wrong! The hunters are the _good guys_. Our job is to fight back against the Grimm and protect everyone in the four kingdoms from the danger they pose. And yeah, sometimes we fight with the White Fang, but only when they're doing bad stuff! Which happens a lot, now that I think about it…" Ruby trailed off as she lost herself in that train of thought.

Yang spoke up to continue the point Ruby was trying to make. "What my sister is saying is that Remnant is a lot less dangerous than you're making it out to be. You don't have to worry about hunters, because we're _awesome_ and only kill bad guys. You don't have to worry about the Grimm, because it's _our_ job to worry about the Grimm. And you probably don't have to worry about the White Fang, because nobody knows your human under all that goofy-looking armor." She paused to consider her last statement before leering at Grif and Simmons. "You are human, aren't you?"

Grif swiftly answered in a panicky voice, "Yes! Yes we are definitely human! Absolutely!"

Yang smiled and shrugged nonchalantly. "Then we're all good." She cast a brief glare at Grif before adding, "Though your friend is right. You better remember to call them faunus and not furries. My best friend happens to be one, and she deals with enough prejudice without you adding to it."

Ruby, sensing that the conversation was quickly taking a turn for the worse, stepped in and took over for Yang. "So you guys have weapons! What do they do? I bet the do cool stuff." Before the soldiers could say anything, Ruby had darted over to Simmons and was examining his rifle from various angles. The red soldier looked down at the curious huntress and cautiously lifted his rifle so that it was out of her reach.

"Uhhh… it's a rifle."

"I can see that! What does it do?"

"It shoots bullets."

"I know that! What _else_ does it do?"

"What more do you want me to say?" Simmons asked, a tinge of annoyance in his voice, "It's a fucking gun. I pull the trigger, and it launches small projectiles at high velocity that try to kill whatever they hit. That's what guns do. That's all their supposed to do. You pull a trigger, and it shoots bullets. The end."

Grif snorted. "Hah, speak for yourself." He turned to Ruby. "I've got a laser gun. It shoots lasers, which makes it, by my estimation, infinitely more badass than what Simmons has."

At Grif's bragging, Ruby's eyes lit up and she abandoned her examination of Simmons in favor of his companion. "Oh! So it's like Neptune's rifle! Can you supercharge it? Does it have multiple forms? Oh! Like a trident! Does it turn into a trident? Can you stab things with it?"

Once again, Grif stared in silence at the young huntress. "You know, you could have let me have my brief moment of pride without instantly shitting all over it, but I guess that's too much to ask for."

Upon realizing her mistake, Ruby's bubbly disposition quickly shifted to one of remorse, though it didn't last for long. "I'm… I'm sorry. I was just trying to give you a chance to tell me about your gun. I'm, uh, sorta-kinda a weapons hobbyist. I get excited when I see new swords and firearms. My first instinct is to just look at them, see how they work, and think about ways of making them better!"

Grif had a hard time staying mad at Ruby. When she put it like that, her train of thought wasn't all that surprising. "Alright, whatever. It's cool. I mean, I guess if I somehow managed to steal Tucker's energy sword and taped it to my gun, I'd be kinda like you guys. Shooting and stabbing shit at the same time."

Ruby's face lit up at Grif's 'suggestion' for a weapon upgrade. "That'd be really cool! I could totally help you with the integration process. Once you showed me how the sword works, I could modify your rifle so that you could deploy the blade from an underslung mount at the push of a button. While I'm at it, maybe I could re-work the rifle design to be more compact, maybe tweak the energy output, oh! And-"

"Ruby, you missed the part where Grif said he'd have to steal the sword from some other dude. I'm guessing this Tucker guy probably wouldn't be too happy about that."

Simmons laughed. "Yeah, that sword is like his baby, I've never seen him without it. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he sleeps with it to ensure nobody like Grif tries to jack it."

"Awww… I guess I'll have to think of something else. Maybe a cookie dispenser or something."

This time, Grif's silent stare lasted only five seconds. "A cookie dispenser? You serious?"

"Umm, yeah. A cookie dispenser." Ruby responded timidly, "Is that not a good idea?"

"What? No, that's a fucking AWESOME idea! How long would it take you to put a cookie dispenser into my gun?"

"Ummm… maybe two or three days?"

Grif turned to Simmons. "Simmons. We are staying here for three days."

"Oh for fuck's sake, man. You do NOT need a gun that shits out cookies!"

But Grif was no longer paying attention to his partner, having returned his focus to his new best friend. "What about an ice cream dispenser? Can you put in an ice cream dispenser? Or an Oreo dispenser?"

"Oreos are cookies, dumbass."

"Shut up, Simmons, I'm having an important conversation here!"

Ruby, however, was getting a bit overwhelmed by Grif's sudden interest in weapon modifications. "Maybe… maybe we should just start with one dispenser for now. Once we get that working to your liking, then we can think about adding in one for ice cream."

Grif sighed. "Yeah, okay. What should we do in the meantime?" He turned his gaze to the forest below him. "I mean, no offense, but I'm getting kinda tired of standing around here staring that a bunch of trees."

At his question, Yang cheerfully piped up. "Well, we could take you on a tour _through_ the trees down there! What you're looking at is the Emerald Forest, and it's full of Grimm. But don't worry! You'll have _us_ so we can simultaneously show you the kind of creatures that lurk here and how easy it is for hunters and huntresses to kick their asses!"

Grif laughed nervously. "Haha. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun, but I was thinking more like hanging out at a candy shop, or taking a nap somewhere… you know: sane activities that don't involve willfully throwing ourselves in harm's way."

The blond huntress shook her head. "Nah, that's boring. I mean come on! You're a soldier, right? That means you enjoy shooting things with your gun."

"Not really, no."

A look of confusion crossed Yang's face. "No?"

"Nope. I was drafted. I mean, yeah, my gun is fucking awesome, but if I actually had a choice between being a soldier that gets repeatedly shot at and not being a soldier that gets repeatedly shot at, I'm pretty sure I'd go with option two." He turned to look at Ruby. "No offense to those of you that put yourselves in harm's way willingly. Somebody's gotta do it, I guess."

Yang pondered Grif's words for a moment before shrugging indifferently. "Oh well. It's not like I was giving you much say in the matter anyway."

"Yeah, yeah, now can we- wait. What?"

"Boop."

With a sly grin and a tap, Yang activated the launch pad Grif was standing on. The end result was Grif careening through the air, flailing and screaming at fifty-seven miles per hour. Simmon's tracked his partners movement for a moment before letting out a small "huh" and turning back to Yang.

"I'm going to be honest with you: I _really_ enjoyed watching that. However, I do have to ask if he's going to be okay. Because that looks like it's going to be a hard landing."

Yang waved him off. "Oh don't worry about it! You'll both be fine. Ruby and I will be making sure the landing is perfectly safe!"

"Oh, well that's good. Wait. What do you mean we'll _both_ be fine?" The cogs began to rapidly spin in his head, and Simmons looked down to see that he was standing on a pad identical to the one that had launched Grif seconds ago.

"Son of a bitch." And with that, the red soldier was swiftly sent on his way to join Grif as he sailed through the air towards the floor of the Emerald Forest.

"Alright, Ruby. You're up next. Try to make sure they land in one piece, okay?"

The younger girl gave her sister two thumbs up. "You got it, Yang!"

The blonde ruffled Ruby's hair, earning a small "hey!" from her team leader. "I'll be following you in a moment. I just gotta make a quick call to Ozpin."

With a _fwip_, Ruby was launched after Grif and Simmons. A few more keystrokes on her scroll, and the amused face of Professor Ozpin popped up on Yang's screen. "I take it your little plan went well, Miss Xiao Long?"

The Huntress nodded. "Yep! Thanks for your assistance, Professor. It was pretty obvious that these two are mostly harmless, so I thought it'd be funny to play a little prank as my way of saying 'Welcome to Remnant!' Ruby's already on her way to ensure they don't get seriously hurt during landing, and I'll be joining her in a moment."

The Headmaster took a sip of coffee before responding. "Very well. I must say, I find their arrival to be most… intriguing. Keep an eye on them and please inform me of any interesting tidbits you find out about where they're from and who they're affiliated with."

Yang gave Ozpin a cheerful salute. "Of course, sir! I'll be sure to let you know if they say anything juicy. Yang out!" She closed the communication screen on her scroll, pulled up her (temporary) access to the launchpad controls, and flung herself towards towards her new "friends."

The next few days were going to be very, very interesting.


End file.
